


How to Survive a Natural Disaster

by Summertime_saddness



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Claudia Stilinski Feels, Cutting, Depression, F/M, Flashbacks, Healing, Heather Doesn't Die, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Read these tags my dudes, Self-Harm, Stilinski Family Feels, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, allison is alive, sad shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 12:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8249363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summertime_saddness/pseuds/Summertime_saddness
Summary: Stiles likes to pretend it’s because his mother died. He feels terrible using her an excuse, feels like it’s somehow sullying her memory to use her dying as a reason for him to hurt himself, especially when it’s not. But he thinks if his Mom was allowed to die like she did, he’s allowed to have this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Heed those tags! Lots of non explicit references to self harm and some other stuff that could be really triggering.   
> Heather and Allison don't die in this fic and void Stiles never happens.   
> See end notes.

“At least,” Lydia said, sniffling as another tear rolled down her cheek. “At least I’m not like those Vicodin popping wrist-cutters from school.” 

She’s sitting in her car outside of the school, pale hands gripping the steering wheel, and for a second Stiles forgets to breathe. He’s leaning towards her open window, hip digging in the rough siding of the car door, red and white Beacon Hills tracksuit doing nothing against the spring chill. Stiles knows what Lydia means, and the words echo in his mind as he concentrates on how to respond, mind struggling to form the words he knows she expects to hear, anything to hide the fact that his hands are shaking and his chest feels too tight. 

At least. At least, he thinks, after he leaves Lydia in her car, jogging back towards the school, throat swallowing convulsively. At least you’re not like them. At least you're not pathetic. At least you have the grades and a Dad who would destroy the world for you. And thank God, at least you have Scott. At least, you don’t really have a problem. Not really. 

 

An hour later, when he’s holding Derek Hale up in the pool, legs trembling with fatigue, arms losing their grip around Derek’s firm upper body, he thinks back to Lydia’s words. He starts to laugh, hysteria building from deep in his chest, the sound comes out weaker than he expects.

“What are you laughing at?” Derek sputters against the water lapping against his mouth, head pressed tightly against Stiles’ upper shoulder. 

“Nothing,” Stiles mutters. He’s going to die here he thinks. Pressed up against fucking Derek Hale in the high school pool. “Just, even Lydia Martin thinks I’m better than the wrist cutters from school, and, really, I’m not.”

Derek has no idea what Stiles is talking about and he says as much. But hours later, when they finally make it out, after Erica had already turned back to head to Derek’s car, leaving Stiles to wait for Scott, Derek had stayed behind. He drifted slightly closer, voice pitched low.

“Are you OK?” His voice is quiet and he doesn’t quite meet Stiles’ eyes. 

Stiles shivers, he feels strange, like a shadowy wall had just swept through him. And he knows, somehow, that Derek isn’t just talking about what had happened at the pool with the Kanima.

“Yeah,” He says, shrugging, forcing a smirk. “I’m fine.”

It’s never quite the same between them after that night. 

 

*

 

Stiles likes to pretend it’s because his mother died. He feels terrible using her an excuse, feels like it’s somehow sullying her memory to use her dying as a reason for him to hurt himself, especially when it’s not. But he thinks if his Mom was allowed to die like she did, he’s allowed to have this.

 

When he was little his mom had tried to ask him what he was feeling, squatting down to his eye level. She had the same eyes that he did, huge and golden in a pale face, freckles dotting across her cheeks in contrast. Her smile had been so gentle, so accepting. Stiles thinks he could have told her anything and she would have just hugged him, told him that it was ok, that she loved him.

“I don’t know, Mom,” He had whispered, leaning forward to wrap his too skinny, too long arms around her shoulders. “I just feel like my head is going to explode sometimes. I don’t know how to stop it.” 

She had nodded seriously, long brown hair, swishing softly against her freckled cheeks. She had hugged him tightly then, petting his messy mop of hair with a gentle hand.

“We’ll figure it out,” She promised. Pulling back so he could look into her eyes “You have me, OK? We’ll figure it out together.” 

 

Stiles had been sort of banking on that, that’d she there to gently tug on his ear, to tell him she loved him no matter what. Even when he broke the china bowl that belonged to his grandmother and accidentally set fire to one of the potholders when he had forgotten to turn off the stove.   
But instead, less than a year later, it’d just be him. Stiles and his dad alone in the big house with burnt pot holders and glued together china, trying to put themselves back together. 

*

 

Stiles wasn’t really as clumsy as everyone thought., he had grown out of most of it by the time he was 13. It was easy, though, to let go, to remember the flailing mess of limbs and erratic movement that characterized his childhood. So, he just kept it up. He banged his hip against the side of the table, fell over into chairs, tripped over wires and telephone chargers. He slammed his fingers against desks, knocked himself into walls, scraped himself on rocks, tree bark, he was a magnet for papercuts. 

*

 

He’s 12 when his father takes him to see the Doctor for the first time. Her name is Paula, but Stiles calls her Doc. P, popping the “P” loudly when he sees her. She just smiles at him. Her skin is dark and her long black hair is the shiniest thing Stiles had ever seen. She’s patient, let’s him ramble for the entirety of their first two sessions, nods when he turns around from his customary pacing to make sure she’s still paying attention. She has glasses that are constantly sliding down to the edge of her nose, Stiles thinks it might be intentional. 

At their third session, she begins talking as soon as Stiles get into the room, making his way to the giant white plush seat across from her own hard, straight backed one.

“Now, Stiles, I thought today we could talk about something different. How does that sound?” She had looked at him expectantly, glasses sitting down her long brown nose. 

He shrugged, nodding slightly. 

“OK.”

“Your Dad is worried about you, Stiles,” She says carefully, “I was hoping today we could talk about how you’re feeling.” 

“Feeling about what,” he had grumbled.

“Anything you want,” She said, smiling slightly, tucking a piece of shiny black behind her ear. 

“Your father tells me that you are on an advanced reading level, and that when you want to be, you can be quite clever.” She’s teasing him, but Stiles already feels worried, anxious, not in the mood to play back.

They sit there in silence before he says, finally: “I feel like there’s a tornado inside my body.” He had said it softly, so quietly, he wasn’t sure she had heard. 

“I feel like it needs to come out and I don’t know how to stop it.”

She had pressed him for more details but he couldn’t give any. They had one more session before Dad’s insurance had run out and they couldn’t afford her. The next Doctor he saw wrote him a prescription for adderall and a mild anti anxiety medicine that his Dad instantly confiscated. 

“Just for emergencies,” He said, locking it in shelf that Stiles had learned to pick years ago. The adderall he could take whenever he wanted. 

 

Later, he would describe the tornado as cannibalistic, eating his insides slowly, savoring all the good parts of him that make up his body, his personality. 

*

 

He first gets the idea from Heather. It’s not her fault, he knows. She’d be sick if she ever found out. He’s 14 and they are sitting on her bed the summer before they both start high school. Heather’s going to a private school at the edge of town, her mom’s new job paying off. Heather is all too long blond hair and skinny body with chubby cheeks. The scar from when her and Stiles had tried to jump from a tree branch into the lake still fresh and scabbing across her upper arm. 

“Amy cuts herself,” She had whispered to Stiles conspiringly, brown eyes wide, leaning towards him across her pink and yellow bedspread. “Like, on purpose.”

Stiles was confused, blinking rapidly, as he felt his eyebrows furrow. 

“Wait, like, with a knife? Why?”

Heather is nodding aggressively, miming the movement of a knife cutting into skin over her wrist. 

“I don’t know, Jessica Mcclain says it’s because she’s emo and it makes her feel better. Like, it helps her get her emotions out or something.” She sniffs, looking slightly horrified and slightly guilty. “It’s messed up.”

Stiles nods slowly. “Messed up.” He repeats.

 

He waits until the weekend to try it out. It’s late, and his Dad had to run to the Station to pick up some paperwork. He’d snuck one of the exacto knifes from his Dad’s tool kit out, it’s handle is off grey, it might have once been green. It felt weird doing it the brightly lit bathroom, too clinical, with all the white linoleum and his own pale reflection staring back at him. So he’s in his room, sitting in his black leather desk chair, facing the window. It’s a full moon. 

It feels strange when he does it, it hurts, and he doesn’t like the sound the blade makes over his skin. Afterword, he feels odd, giddy, but like something had settled inside him, makes it just a little bit quieter in his head.

He buys a pencil case that has a lock and puts the grey green exacto knife it in. He carries it around with him everywhere. 

*

 

Stiles meets Scott at camp the summer before 7th grade. Scott has brown skin and wheezing breath and he sometimes stutters. Stiles likes him immediately. Scott is what Stiles imagines Superman must have been like as a child: all good heart and eager smile, even when the other kids pick on him, make fun of his stilted words and shaky breath, he forgives them immediately. Tries to defend them when Stiles calls them every nasty word he can think of back at their bunk.

“They just don’t understand, Stiles.” Scott said with a shrug, “They’ve probably just never met someone like me before.”

Stiles knows the bullies can’t swim, imagines throwing them into the deepest part of the lake and watching them writhe around, begging for help, for Stiles to throw them the rope, until they sink to the bottom. Stiles settles for collecting all the bugs he can find and putting them in their luggage instead. 

*

When Scott gets bit and asks Stiles why he sometimes smells like blood, like healing skin. Stiles just shrugs.

“What can I say, I’m a bit of a kluntz, Scotty.” Scott laughs, and Stiles heart hadn’t even skipped. 

He tells everyone that he hates needles, faints at the sight of blood, couldn’t handle getting a piercing or a tattoo, never wants to see his own flesh knit itself back together. 

“We get it Stilinski,”Jackson had said, knocking into Stiles’ shoulder, mindful of his newfound werewolf strength. “You’re a wuss.”

 

Stiles figures out how long exactly it takes his body to heal, how deep he’s allowed to go, where the best locations are on his body to make his cuts. He’s careful not make them too straight, he curves the knife, twists it at odd angles, makes them all look at least passably natural. He never takes off his shirt.

*

 

By the time junior year rolls around, Stiles is doing pretty well for himself. He has...friends, well, more like a pack thrown together because they have no other choice. And he has his Dad, and Scott, and, on bad days, the exacto knife he still keeps with him. He likes hearing it rattle inside the pencil case when he puts on his backpack, it soothes him. 

*

 

Sometimes he catches Derek looking at him during pack meetings, a strange expression across his face. Stiles ignores it in favor of trying to rile up Erica, or attempt to get Boyd to speak more than a few words at a time. He’s not sure when they all became friends, actual friends, but he thinks it was sometime after Gerard Argent used his face as a punching bag while Erica and Boyd got tortured a few feet away. When he swore that Scott would come for him, that Scott knew his scent, and he...hadn’t showed. He’s still working on forgiving him for that one.

There’s something about Derek Hale that Stiles can’t exactly place. Something about him that Stiles finds oddly comforting, kindred. Maybe it's because Derek has a natural disaster raging inside him too. Except his is more like a tsunami, giant waves crashing inside of him, sometimes loud enough that Stiles swears he can hear it. 

Derek never turns Stiles away when he turns up unannounced, plops himself down on the musty couch to do homework or research. Derek will make tea, tea, and somehow always has bizarre snack food lying around. Like bacon flavored corn chips or green tea wafer cookies with vanilla bean in the middle. Derek will sit in the adjoining chair and read. Every time it’s a new book, something thick with an elaborate cover design and Stiles pretends not to be impressed. 

 

Boyd and Erica get kidnapped by the alphas and Stiles cuts himself so deeply he pretends to have the flu to get out seeing the pack for a week.

*

“You smell like blood.” 

They are sitting inside the camaro outside of a burger king waiting for their order to be ready. Stiles had convinced Derek that milk shakes and fries were just what they both needed to help them figure out how to stop the alpha pack and get Boyd and Erica back. Stiles smiles with practiced ease, already lifting his shoulders to do his customary shrug. 

“Don’t say it’s because you’re a klutz, Stiles.” Derek isn’t looking at him, instead focusing his gaze outside the window, eyes tracking the cars creeping by in line. 

Stiles’ hands are sweating, he feels suddenly hot, trapped, he reaches over to unwind the window, taking in deep, steadying breaths.

“OK?” He forces himself to keep his voice light, carefree. “I probably just hurt myself or something.” Not a lie.

Derek finally turns in the seat to look at him, pinning him in place with a stare that isn’t unkind or even challenging, just...steady. 

“I’m a born wolf Stiles,” Derek says, voice surprisingly calm, gentle almost. “I find it odd that nearly every wound I smell on you smells like it was caused by the same metal.” 

Stiles is moving out of the car so quickly that for a split second he’s shocked to find himself suddenly outside, the cool night air hitting his face, before he’s bent over, vomiting down onto the concrete. Derek’s there, a solid, steady warmth against his side, helping him back up, handing him a water bottle to rinse his mouth with.

“Sorry,” Stiles says, laughing weakly. “I must’ve eaten something bad earlier.”

Derek just nods, lets the lie go, and Stiles is so grateful that he start crying, tries to hide it behind the bodily reaction of throwing up. He doesn’t think he fooled Derek. He doesn’t think he ever has.

*

 

At Heather’s 17th birthday party she pushes him gently against the wall of her childhood bedroom and kisses him. She’s beautiful, baby fat worn down to gentle curves, braces left behind in favor of straight white teeth. Stiles kisses her back eagerly, bringing hands up to gently cup her ass, Heather laughs against his lips, pressing back into him. It’s not as awkward as he expects it to be, she’s still his best friend, still the only person besides himself that grew up knowing his mother.   
He pulls back though, when Heather’s hands drift towards to waist, fingers tapping against his belt.

“I-I, kind of like someone.” 

Heather grins, pulls her hands away. 

“OK, would you rather do it with them instead?” 

Stiles blinks rapidly, he knows he means Derek, even if he has been trying to not think about Derek that way for, oh, the past year or so. He shakes his head, running his hands through his longer hair, pulling at the ends. 

“No, I, uh, no I want to do it with you,” he says lamely, “I just wanted you to...know.”

“OK,” Heather says, nodding, “I get that.”

Stiles smiles at her, pulling her back to him, “Let’s do this thing.” 

Heather doesn’t comment on Stiles request to turn the lights off when they start to undress and it’s fun, easy, Heather is familiar and her hands ground him as they drift over his body. Afterward, when they are both naked, sprawled across Heather’s bed, Heather reaches over and grabs Stiles’ hand.

“I love you,” she whispers into the darkness, “Not in that way though.” 

Stiles laughs, brings their joined hands together to he can kiss her own. “Same.” 

*

When Derek starts dating Stiles’ English teacher, Stiles feels like he’d been gutted. It’d been stupid, he knows, to think that all that time they spent together that summer, all the secrets they’ve shared, all the pain they’d confessed too, could add up to anything more than just friendship. Still,   
it hurts so much that Stiles isn’t sure what to do with himself. It’s nothing like how he felt when Lydia’s kiss had saved Jackson or when Jenny Louston had turned him down that one time during sophomore year, this feels like the tornado had finally broken free of his body and raged.

He cuts himself extra hard that night, the way he usually doesn’t allow himself to do. It hurts and bleeds more than it probably should, but he feels instantly better, calmer. And Stiles knows that Derek will smell the blood and familiar metal on him, and Derek will know that it’s all his fault. The intent comes to Stiles so suddenly that he is shocked by the violence of it, by the truth of his thoughts. He’s horrified at himself, so horrified, that he shoves the blade under his bed, instantly running to the bathroom to patch himself up. He’s sobbing. He feels like a monster. He avoids Derek for weeks afterward, won’t let himself near him. Stiles didn’t think it was possible to hate himself more.

*

 

Sometime between Jennifer Blake kidnapping his Dad, Boyd and Erica dying, and Stiles having a sexuality not so crisis, he realizes that it’s been nearly three months since his last cut. The thought makes him have a panic attack, curling up on the floor next the couch, trying to steady his breaths and he dry heaves onto the carpet. Scott finds him like that and tries to convince him to go to the hospital. 

“You nearly passed out,” Scott tells him later, voice shaky with worry. 

“I’m fine, Scotty,” He says. Burrowing deeper into his bed where Scott had brought him. Stiles means it. He’s fine. He is. 

 

That summer Stiles tells everyone he has a nasty stomach bug and spends two weeks locked inside of his bedroom. He sleeps for most of it. Takes too long showers, shuffles back to his room with pruney skin and shaky hands. He doesn’t cut though. But Stiles knows there are more ways to hurt yourself than the obvious ones. 

 

It’s Derek who shows up awkwardly at his house a few days after Stiles has reintroduced himself to the outside world. He looks uncomfortable standing in front of the Stilinski residence, wearing a worn blue t shirt and black jeans. He’s holding a box of what look suspiciously like the green tea wafer cookies and a business card. 

“Um, can I come in?”

They sit in the backyard on dusty lawn chairs, drinking cold Mike's’ Hard Lemonade that Heather had snuck over in the beginning of the summer and eating the wafers cookies, green dust covering the front of both their shirts.

Derek’s been oddly quiet, quieter than usual. But then again so has Stiles, he feels like he’s under sheets of thick ice, waiting for it to melt fully so he can finally feel everything the right way again. But it’s comfortable, the silence, out here with just the two of them. Stiles thinks that Derek must know how he feels about him, that he can probably smell the deep worn affection all over him. But Derek says nothing, doesn’t treat him any differently, and Stiles is once again grateful for Derek’s quiet acceptance. 

The business card Derek had brought him is sitting on the the rickety table between them. All it says is “Doctor Elizabeth Johnson,” and a number and email address. 

“She’s a, um, a therapist I’ve been seeing.” Derek had stated awkwardly. “She’s been...extremely helpful. And she knows about us, knows about the supernatural. Her mom is an emissary.” 

Stiles nods. Pockets the card. They spend the rest of the afternoon chasing the sun around the yard and snacking on cookies. It’s nice.

 

Stiles likes to pretend that that was it. That was the turn around, the beginning of his transformation and “great path to healing.” That he called Doctor Johnson the next day, maybe told his Dad about the cuts he made on his own body, how the tornado had been beating against him for so long he was afraid there’d be nothing left of his own insides to bleed out. Instead he shoves the card in his desk under a stack of papers and says nothing. 

 

*

Derek leaves with Cora before the beginning of senior year. He hugs Stiles for a long time when he says goodbye and Stiles isn’t ashamed to admit that his eyes were wet when he finally pulled away. It was silly, really, Derek was only going away for a few months, to check out the pack that Cora had been living with. But there was something final about the way it felt, watching Derek close the door of his car and begin the drive back to his loft from the Stilinski driveway. When Stiles finally closes his front door behind him he realizes he’s not sure if he’ll still be alive when Derek comes back.

*

 

His Dad finds him in his room one day. Stiles is sitting on his bed, trying to work out why there are suddenly yellow feathers covering most of the preserve (his vote is faires, but no one else seems to agree with him) and simultaneously complete his research for History. That’s due tomorrow.

“Hey, daddy-o, father o’ mine,” Stiles says, barely glancing up from his pages of reading. His hair is rumpled to the point of near hilarity and he’s not sure if the stain on the front his shirt is a recent development or if it’s always been there.

His dad just chuckles softly before moving slowly into the room, sitting carefully on the other side of Stiles’ bed. And just watches him. Stiles can feel his father's gaze on him, taking him in. Stiles sighs dramatically, throwing the pen he’d been playing with down against the bed, letting it bounce. 

“Dad, what?”

His dad is silent for a moment, thinking. He looks older in this moment then Stiles remembered, face lined and haggard. He looks momentarily lost. 

“Dad…?”

“I thought it was the just the werewolf stuff.” He interrupts, words careful. “When you told me, I was shocked, sure, but I thought ‘this is it, this is why.’” He looks up, his eyes searching Stiles’.”But it’s not is it, son?”

Stiles blinks rapidly, tilts his head to the side in a move he knows he got from Derek.

“What do you mean?”

“It just…” His dad falters, runs a hand across his tired face, inhaling slowly. “It seems like you’re putting on an act sometimes, like you’re hiding something. But I live with you, Stiles, I see how you look when you think no one else is around.”

Stiles says nothing. He doesn’t move, he feels like he’s hardly even breathing.

“You look, God, Stiles. You look like you’re miserable.” 

Stiles says nothing, staring.

His Dad sighs deeply, turning to look out the window, it’s sunny outside, summer only a few weeks away. Graduation not to far after that. 

“Your mother,” His voice cracks slightly, clears his throat roughly. “Your mother pulled me aside one day. I don’t know where you were, probably off with Heather somewhere. And your mother, your mother tells me ‘I don’t think Stiles is happy inside.’” He pauses, turning his gaze back to Stiles, his eyes look damp. Stiles drops his gaze down to his green and blue bedspread, wishing it were big enough to swallow him whole.

“And I,” another cough, “I laughed at her. I said, ‘Stiles, is the happiest kid I know, what’s he got to be sad about, he’s 10!’” 

Another pause.

“I thought when it wasn’t the werewolf, it was the bi thing, but it’s not. I know it’s not, Stiles.”

Stiles can’t speak, he feels like there is day old maple syrup coating his throat, slowly congealing. He’s amazed he’s not having a panic attack.

“Your mom said her Grandpa had the “sad sickness,” they used to call it.”

Stiles nods slowly at that. He remembers.

“I think I might have that too.” He whispers. 

His Dad doesn’t say anything, just reaches the open books and pages of notes and hugs him until Stiles body begins to thaw and he wraps his arms around his father. He never wants to let go.

 

He doesn’t tell his Dad everything. Just about how it feels sometimes, like he’s in a film without a script or proper direction, moving at a different pace than everyone else, lost. He digs the card for Doctor Johnson out from desk drawer, talks to his dad about setting up an appointment. 

*

 

He gets a text from Derek somewhere between spring break and midterm week. He’ll be staying with Cora longer than he expected, probably wouldn’t be back until summer. Stiles reads the text three times. He doesn’t bother replying.

*

 

He meets Malia in the waiting room at Doctor Johnson’s. She’s wearing a dark plaid shirt and jean shorts that ride up so high, that Stiles is sure he can see the lace of her underwear skimming the bottom of her ass when she stands up. He’s trying to stay calm, he ignored his Dad’s offer to wait with him, and flips through the bland magazines of the waiting room table. There are just two offices in the large room, Dr. Johnson’s and, from the dark bronze of the name tag above the door, a Dr. Morrel. The room is a bland beige with off white carpeting and soft yellow lighting. Stiles supposes it’s supposed to feel calming.

“So, what are you here for?” 

Stiles starts, flailing slightly and nearly dropping the 2001 issue of Popular Science off his lap.

“I, what?” He says, turning to the girl sitting in the white chair across from Dr. Morrell's closed office door. 

“I said,” Malia states, face unreadable, “what are you here for? You’re obviously here to see Dr. Johnson, I heard she’s great.” Malia sniffs loudly. “She doesn’t see many humans.”

Stiles stares, eyes wide. “You’re a werewolf?” He whispers, leaning across his chair, eyes scanning her face as if looking for evidence. 

“No,” Malia scoffs, “I’m a werecoyote.” She juts her chin out, pride and defensiveness evident in her face.

“Oh, ok, um, sorry?”

Malia shrugs, her dark hair skimming her shoulders. She’s pretty, Stiles can’t help but notice. 

“It’s OK,” Malia says, “I’m here because my biological mom is a psycho. Well, she’s bipolar. Same thing.” 

Stiles barks out a surprised laugh, eyes wide. Malia turns to him and grins.

“That is...incredibly fucked up,” He begins, shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that in a psychologist's office.” 

Malia rolls her eyes. “I’m bipolar too, I’m allowed.”

“So you’re admitting that you are also a psycho?” Stiles says before he can stop himself. 

Malia gives him a smile that is all, sharp, shifted teeth.

“You have no idea.”

 

Stiles isn’t sure when they start being friends. He guesses it begins sometime after their fifth pre-session chat and Malia asks him if he wants to get food after. Which turns into them hanging out on the weekends, meeting Scott and Allison for dinner and bowling, and making out in the back of the jeep on the side of the road. It’s nice, Stiles thinks, to have someone who understands him, who doesn’t question why he smells like old metal and blood, who doesn’t tell him that the way he’s coping is wrong. 

When Malia sees the scars on his body the first time he takes off his clothes in front of her, she just shrugs, traces the fine white lines on his upper arms that are barely visible before leaning down to kiss him. He doesn’t think about Derek. Doesn’t think about his three month trip with Cora is stretching out to be more like 6 months.

*

Malia was a thunderstorm in a human body, with lightening on her skin and power running along her finger tips. She tasted like rain water. She’s violent sometimes, refuses to take her medication, not like it does much with her healing abilities, and when she’s manic there’s nothing Stiles can do but ride it out with her. She’s brave and fierce and Stiles thinks he might love her a little bit. 

*

 

Derek calls him. It’s a the middle of the summer and Derek was supposed to be back in Beacon Hills six months ago. Stiles is sitting at his desk, sweaty skin sticking to the black leather of his desk chair, his broken ceiling fan turns mournfully from the faint breeze from his open window. Stiles almost doesn’t answer. 

“Hello?” He tries to keep his voice calm, collected. Like having Derek on the other line isn’t making his palms feel sweaty, his heart race. 

“Stiles.” Derek sounds...relieved. Pleased. Like Stiles answering the phone was the best thing that’s happened to him. Or maybe Stiles is just projecting.

“Yeah, hey, Derek.”

“How are you?”

Stiles was prepared to be civil, to tell Derek how good, actually good, he’s been. How he kind of had a girlfriend for a while there. How he got into his top choice for college, how Scott was a great alpha, how he’d even studied a bit with Deaton about druidism. How Dr. Johnson is actually really helpful and understanding. Instead, all that comes out is a harsh laugh. 

“How am I? How the fuck do you think I am, Derek? Where have you been?”

He can hear Derek taking a deep breath on the other line, he imagines the way Derek’s eyes must look, wide and ernest. Filled with concern and a guilt. Stiles doesn’t care.

“I can’t believe you just left, Derek. You were--you were the only one that knew, you know that right? The only one who really understood, even a little bit, even though I never really fucking told you. And you just...left.” He’s practically panting, deafened by the rush of blood pounding in his ears.

“Stiles,” Derek says, carefully. “Stiles, I’m sorry you feel like that, and I’m sorry I left the way I did. But I needed to go, I needed to be with Cora and I needed to--”

“Oh, come on Derek!” Stiles yells into the phone. “You needed, what? A vacation from us? You do realize that all this shit that happened, everything bad came out since Scott got bitten, was your fault don’t you? You bit fucking Jackson, your uncle bit Scott, fuck, maybe if you hadn’t been so busy fucking the Darach, you might have noticed she was actually evil? And so, what, you just couldn’t stick around to see it through?” 

It’s quiet on the other end, and all Stiles can hear is his own breathing. His hands are shaking and his throat feels tight. There’s not enough air in the stifling heat of his bedroom. On some level, he knows it’s not as simple as he said, that maybe, this pause is his chance to apologize. But the words are stuck in this throat and everything feels heavy, slow.

“Stiles,” Derek says, voice aggravatingly calm. Stiles imagines Derek face, tanned from the sun, green grey eyes clear and bright. “I left because I had to take care of myself, of my sister. Just because you’re in love with me doesn’t give you the right to me or my time. I’m not your savior, I can’t fix you, I’m your friend and I’m here for you, but not like that.”

Stiles inhales sharply, shock roaring through him, Derek’s words ricocheting in his head like bullets against metal, loud and deafening. He can’t speak, doesn’t move, the sweat slowing leaving a damp trail down his back, dripping onto the seat of the chair. 

“Stiles,” Derek continues, voice sounding impossibly calmer, gentler. “I’m not trying to hurt you, but I won’t be manipulated either. I care about you. A lot. I called because I wanted to see how you were. I got worried when you stopped answering my texts. And emails.” 

Oh, right. Stiles had stressed himself out trying to figure out how to answer those properly. Eventually, he had just given up.

Stiles clears his throat. Voice sounding rough. “Fuck, you, Derek. Stay with Cora, don’t bother coming back.” He hangs up. Deletes Derek’s number, turns off his phone. He doesn’t talk to Derek again until Stiles gets the news about Malia. 

*

He tries to keep it in. The meanness. But sometimes, most of the time, it slips out. His mom had told him how important it was to be considerate, to be thoughtful. 

“Stiles,” his mom had said gently, smoothing down the front of Stiles’ blue and yellow polka dotted t shirt, ignoring the mud stain drying in zigg zagged streaks of brown. He had just told Matt Dahler that just because his mom doesn’t actually want him doesn’t mean he’s allowed to be clingy. Matt had cried for the rest of the day. 

“You have a gift.” She fixed Stiles with serious stare, all sharp eyes and half smile. “You find things out about people, about how people feel inside, and that’s a really special.” 

She sighed then, pushing some of her red brown hair off her face as she stared down at Stiles.

“But you can’t just say them out loud. Many people like to keep these things secret, and it’s not ok to hurt them with your knowledge.” 

Stiles had nodded seriously then, and he apologized to Matt the next week. 

And Stiles tries to remember what his mother had said that day in the playground. Tries to keep them in, but the words come out anyways, slippery from underneath his tongue, harsh words that he only half regrets. Derek seems to bring them out of him the easiest, like a siren’s song calling them up from where they lie deep within Stiles’ body. Derek had told him about Kate, how he had thought he loved her, how she had used him. Abused him really. Stiles had already figured it out before that, and Stiles thinks Derek knew that too, but still. When Derek told him, in a quiet, halting voice, his hands only slightly shaking, Stiles had reached over, wrapped his long fingers tightly over Derek’s blunt ones, and listened. But when they are in the hospital, after Jennifer, his Dad kidnapped, they slip out him again, and it’s just so, so easy.

“...your mass murdering ex girlfriend, the second you’ve dated by the way,”

He texts Derek an apology later, doesn’t bother blaming it on the stress, or worry about his dad.

“Sometimes I’m just not a very nice person.” He states. Derek tells him it’s ok, he’s not always a nice person either. 

*

Doctor Elizabeth Johnson is not what Stiles was expecting. She’s tall and thin, bright red hair cut into a pixie cut that hangs gently across her forehead. She’s pretty, and she reminds Stiles of what he used to think Elves looked like. Before he actually met one. She’s tattooed, with a raven perched prettily on the left of her neck, it’s wings seems to stretch and flutter every time she turns her head. Stiles swears that he catches it blinking at him sometimes, eyes a deep sea blue just like it’s owner’s. Her office is spacious, all wide windows that overlook a small garden, potted plants lining the deep mahogany book shelves. There’s no hard backed chair or alienating desk, just comfy deep blue couches that Stiles thinks might be tempurpedic. 

“Stiles,” Dr. Johnson greets him, the day of their first session. “Let’s start out with the basics: Why are you here and what are you hoping to get from our meetings?”

Stiles blinks, he wasn’t quite expecting that. He realizes, too late, that he really has no idea. Where to even begin? What is there to even say?

“Um, I guess. I’d uh,” He tries. He feels overdressed, hot and stuffy in his layers of plaid and undershirts. “I guess I want to not to feel so out of control. Not so anxious.” 

Dr. Johnson nods. “And what makes you anxious, Stiles?” 

Stiles fights the urge to roll his eyes. He can’t help the burst of sarcasm that snaps out.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that my best friend is a werewolf and I’m suddenly part of a wolf pack that’s made up of more humans and other supernatural creatures than actual wolves. Maybe it’s because I’ve almost died three times this past year alone, or maybe it’s because we’re all so busy trying to stop bad guys, that I haven’t even properly gotten a chance to freak out over the fact that I like dudes, and the dude I actually like is fucking miles away fucking off with his equally hot and annoying sister.” 

He’s breathing heavily by the end of it, face more than a little red. Dr. Johnson looks completely unsurprised by his outburst and just nods at Stiles, like all he had answered had been “fine.” 

“That’s all definitely worth being anxious over, Stiles,” She says serenely. “But is that why you’re really here?” 

Stiles scoffs, turning away to stare at the way the aloe plant catches the light from the window. He doesn’t answer for a long time. 

 

Dr. Johnson is kind, helpful in ways didn’t even realize he needed. He learns about words he’d already heard before, had looked up online when he was desperate for answers, but that take on new meaning now. Words like triggers and derealization. It helps, a little bit, knowing how they apply to him, what they really mean. But the sessions are hard, they make him tired, make his body feel full.

“It’s going to take work,” Doctor Johnson tells him gently. He’s not so sure he’s worth the effort.

 

When his Dad tries to pay for Stiles’ sessions, Doctor Johnson just shakes her head.

“His first ten sessions are already payed for.” She says with a smile.

His Dad pulls back in surprised, brow furrowing. 

“By whom?” He asks, voice slightly suspicious. Stiles feels strange, his chest feels tight and something twinges inside, just behind his ribcage.

“Derek Hale.” Doctor Johnson says, smiling widely.

Stiles is surprised by how not surprised he is.

*

 

He finds out that Malia is dead a month before he starts college. She’d moved away with her adoptive family three months before, somewhere in Oregon where there was a pack with a werecoyote as an alpha’s mate. At first Stiles thinks it had to have been hunters, some kind of coyote specific brand of wolfsbane maybe, or even murder committed by a pack member, jealous of Malia’s abilities. It’s his Dad that tells him it was suicide. A mixture of aspirin, sleeping pills, and mistletoe. She’d left a note, all it said was “I just wanted it to stop. I’m Sorry.” Stiles thinks he can relate. 

Stiles thinks someone must have called Derek, told him what had happened, because when he calls him in the middle of the night, three weeks after Malia’s suicide, Derek doesn’t sound surprised when he tells him. Just incredibly relieved and worried.

“Stiles, thank God you answered.”

“Hey, Derek.” Stiles manages to breath out. Voice rough and heavy.

“Stiles,” Derek sighs, “Where are you?”

Stiles wheezes out of a laugh, “Home, where the fuck else?”

“I’ll be there in 20, meet me outside.” 

 

They drive around for the rest of the night. Derek had gotten back a few hours and Stiles knows it was because of him. He tries to read too much into it. They go to burger king and share a massive bag of fries, dipping them into extra large milkshakes. Derek tells him about Cora’s pack in South America, how she’s dating some girl named Kelly, how happy Cora seems down there, how she has a family. Stiles can hear the painful wistfulness in his voice. 

“Don’t feel obligated to stay here,” He says shoving some fries into his mouth, anything to soothe the ache he feels at his own words. 

“Nah,” Derek says, “The climate is a little too hot for me.”

Stiles can’t help but grin at Derek and Derek turns to look at him, green eyes shining, and he smiles softly back.

“I’m kind of in love with you.” Stiles whispers. Derek’s smile falters, and he quickly looks away, staring out the window.

“Stiles…”

“Look,” Stiles interrupts, voice shaking, “I, I don’t expect you feel that way back. I just. I wanted you to know, I mean, I know you already know, but I wanted you to hear me...say it.”

Derek nods slowly, still staring outside, jaw tightly clenched. Stiles sighs loudly, taking a long gulp of his chocolate milkshake. 

“I have feelings for you too, you know.”

Stiles sputters, half choking on the milkshake that begins to drip out of his mouth. He coughs loudly.

“What?”

Derek sighs, eyeing the chocolate now spilled across the seat of his car. 

“I have feelings for you, that’s part of why I stayed away for so long. It was...hard to keep myself controlled around you.”

“What.” Stiles says again and Derek just rolls his eyes, takes a sip of his own, vanilla, milkshake.

“I like you Stiles,” Derek says, obnoxiously slow, “But I...had to do some healing on my own, make sure I had a handle on my own emotional health before --”

“Before you had to deal with fucked up mine?” Stiles interrupted, voice cutting. 

“Stiles,” Derek said, exasperation clear in his voice, “You’re not the only one who’s ‘fucked up’ here you know.”

Stiles slinks back further down into the seat, taking a long sip of his milkshake.

“Yeah, Derek, I know.” 

They sit in silence for a while, the gentle hum of the car and the occasional slurp of milkshake the only sound between them.

“Being in love doesn’t fix you, you know.” Derek says, voice breaking through the quiet. 

Stiles startles, jostling his milkshake, a little bit of chocolate drips down onto his pants. 

“Yeah, I, I know Derek.” He says, wiping his jeans with the sleeves of his hoodie. “I know that sex doesn’t magically magic the depression away.”

Derek nods slowly, and Stiles turns to look at him, taking in the serious expression on Derek’s face, the tight grip he has on his thigh.

“Is that, uh,” Stiles clears his throat, scratching his chin nervously. “If that something you tried?”  
Derek turns from the window with a sigh, meeting Stiles’ large brown eyes with his own green grey ones. 

“I tried a lot of things to kill the sadness I felt, Stiles. Not all of them were healthy.” 

“Right, right,” Stiles nodded rapidly, blinking at Derek’s quiet intensity. “I mean you know I used to cut myself right? And ‘used too’ is a relative term, I’m just not doing it right now, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t in the future. Or tomorrow. Or when I get home. I mean I don’t think I will, but I might, you know? I’m still figuring out how to...deal without it.”

Derek nods slowly at him, reaching a large hand across from the car towards him, palm up. There are flecks of salt and french fry dust on his fingers, and there’s a forgotten smear of vanilla milkshake on his wrist. Stiles tentatively puts his own long fingers against Derek’s palm, before sliding them up to enclose their hands together. 

“We’re going to figure this out, Ok, Stiles? Together. There will be hard days, days that you might think aren’t worth living, but I promise you they are, Ok? I promise.” 

Stiles nods, sniffing against his collar.

“I love you so fucking much,” Stiles laughs wetly, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

Derek grins, flashing a row of white, straight teeth.

“I know.”

They stay in the car for most of the night. Stiles tells Derek about Malia, about his therapy appointments, how things are going with Scott. Derek tells him more about Cora, how South America is, how he’s almost fluent now is Spanish. They don’t let go of each other’s hands until Derek has to drive them both home.

*

 

8 Months Later

 

“Derek, what are we doing here, there’s sand in my shorts and I didn’t even sit down yet so how the hell did that even happen?” 

“Stiles, shut up and help me unload this basket.”

Stiles sighs loudly and flops down near where Derek had already laid out the blue and red checkered beach towels. A matching set. He bumps their shoulders together, grinning when Derek bumps him back, throwing Stiles one of his soft smiles. The kind that make Stiles feel like there are hummingbirds in his chest, soft wings fluttering against his heart. It’s a Tuesday, the first warm day of the year, and it’s technically the week that Stiles is supposed to be getting ready for his upcoming finals. But he can’t seem to care when a shirtless Derek Hale is unpacking homemade sandwiches from a picnic basket and keeps finding excuses to brush his fingertips across Stiles’ pale thighs. 

He’s grateful that Derek came and whisked him away from campus for a bit. The past year had been extra stressful for Stiles, and he wondered many times if he should have taken the advice of his Therapist to take a year off in between. They were at a beach that Derek used to go to as a child, secluded and warm, far out from where most chose to go swimming, since the water was known to be choppy and there were more rocks than greenery. 

“Good for werewolves,” Derek had told him.

Stiles loved how Derek had been sharing more of his life with him even if their relationship seemed to be moving in small increments. It had been nearly a year since Derek came back to Beacon Hills but they hadn’t progressed more than making out in Derek’s loft, or Stiles’ dorm room, or the jeep, or the Beach. Stiles wasn’t complaining though, he knew why it was important for Derek to take things slow physically. 

 

After Derek had finished rolling out the last of the supplies, Stiles stretched out along the blanket, reaching to pull his shirt up and off in the process. 

Derek leaned down gently over Stiles, pressing a soft kiss against the delicate skin behind Stiles’ ear, making him shiver.

“Hey, watch it,” Stiles said playfully, “Or else you’ll get us in trouble for public indecency.” 

Derek chuckled above him, moving down to kiss his cheek, his neck, his collarbones. He felt, more than heard, Derek’s quiet intake of breath, his sudden stillness, before he kept going, carefully, slowly. 

Stiles tried to resist the urge to cover what he knew Derek had spotted, the fresh cuts along his ribs. They had made a pact before, not to hide from each other, and not to treat every bad moment as a sign of serious issue.Derek just kept moving, large fingers making their way to the Seashell tattoo wrapped around the inside on Stiles’ wrist, tracing the lines of ink. Derek sighed and laid out close to Stiles, skin to skin, wrapping a warm arm around Stiles’ torso. 

Stiles reached over, tracing Derek’s arm gently with a long finger.

“I just had a bad week,” Stiles said, keeping his tone light, “You know, finals are coming up and all that.”

Derek just nodded, reaching down to interlock their fingers. 

“I get it, Stiles.” He said softly, turning his face into the almost summer sun, letting some of the blue bleed into his eyes. 

Stiles smiled, glad it was so easy, so simple, to just explain, to have Derek react the way he did. In truth, Stiles still wanted to destroy himself. He knew that Derek knew it too. Stiles wanted to peel himself out of his skin, slice out all the bad, dash what was left against the rocks, watch himself get buried beneath the freezing waves of the choppy water. It was a miracle, fantastical, that he hadn’t already. And when Derek squeezed Stiles hand, just a little too hard, he knew that Derek understood that too.

*

When Stiles was little, one Tuesday morning his Mother didn’t make the exit to take him to his middle school.

“Let’s go on an adventure, play hookie, how does that sound?” Her huge brown eyes had twinkled into his as she looked at him from the rearview mirror. Stiles had grinned back. Who didn’t like adventures?

They stopped to get chocolate milkshakes at the crappy diner near the edge of town, with the flickering bathroom lights and graffiti on the outside. 

“How’s your head feeling these days,” Claudia had asked, taking a long, loud gulp from her chocolate milkshake, smiling at the face Stiles threw her as they leaned against the side of her jeep.

Stiles shrugged, bony shoulders knocking against the car’s blue siding. 

“OK, I guess. It just feels...loud somethings.” 

Claudia nodded seriously.

“OK, champ, I know just the place to go to help you let it all out.”

They drove for another hour, singing along to the songs on the radio: Britney Spears the most popular choice for both of them. It wasn’t until Stiles recognized the changing land around them did he realize where they were going.

When they arrived at the beach, Claudia reached out for Stiles’ hand. And even though he was nearly 11, and “too old for such things,” he grabbed onto it, squeezing fiercely. 

They walked in silence, abandoning their shoes by the car even though it was still too cold, right up until the water’s edge, letting the icy waves lap gently at their toes. 

“Alright Stiles,” Claudia whispered, her eyes on the expanse of blue green in front of them, “Are you ready to let it out?”

Stiles looked up at her, nodding seriously, letting go of his mother’s hand.

Claudia took a deep breath in, shut her eyes tight, and began to scream. Stiles blinked, jerking back at the sight of his mother, screaming out onto the ocean, arms stretched out wide. Stiles turned to stare back out at the waves, feeling the hard grands of cold sand dig into his heals, the cold pull of the ocean wrapping itself gently around his ankles. His took his own deep lungful of air, and began to scream, matching his own sharper yell to the higher one of his mother’s. 

They stood there, brown hair flying in the wind, toes beginning to prune and turn numb, faces red and blotchy, screaming into the wind until they turned, laughing and crying into each other, wrapping too long arms around ones that felt thinner than Stiles’ remembered. 

Claudia knelt until she at his level, knees sinking into the icy water, pressing her damp cheeks against Stiles’ mop of messy brown. 

“I love you, my perfect boy, my perfect, perfect, Stiles.” She whispered, voice hoarse from yelling. 

Stiles reached to hug her back, feeling the trembling weight of her frail feeling body. 

“I love you too, Mom. I love you too.”

*

Now against the sun warm blanket, pressed up against Derek Hale, Stiles turns to Derek’s tanned face.

“I love you.” He whispered softly, watching as Derek smiles in response, eyes still closed against the light.

“I love you too.” 

“I wish I could just stay here forever, you know? I think I’d like that. We can build a cottage or some shit up by the grass and like, scour for food and my Dad can visit us.”

Derek chuckled low in his throat, sitting to watch Stiles’ face, watch the moles stand out against his suncreened covered face. 

“Do you think you’d feel happier? Do you think if you were away from everything...you’d feel differently?” Derek asked softly. “If you say yes, I’ll build you that ‘cottage or some shit’ right now, we could move in next month.” 

Stiles laughed, leaning up too quickly to kiss the side of Derek’s mouth before settling back against the beach towel. 

He didn’t say anything for a while just watched Derek watch him, letting the warm sun fight against the chill he felt deep in his bones, at his core.

“I-I don’t think so,” He said softly, finally, “I think maybe at first, I’d feel...OK. But I know, in the end, it’d be...the same.”

Derek nodded, leaning up to took at Stiles in the eyes. 

“You have me, you know that right? You have me, and Scott and your Dad and the rest of the pack behind you. And,” Derek pressed his head forward, leaning his warm forehead against Stiles’, “I love you.”

Stiles grinned. “I know.”

*

Stiles knew it wasn’t because his mother died, or because Heather told him about Amy the summer before High School, or because his best friend was a werewolf and Stiles could sometimes do magic. 

On the way back to the car from the beach his mother had pressed a seashell the size of her fist into Stiles’ hand. 

“For when your head gets too loud,” she had said, gently guiding his arm upwards, until the shell was pressed against his ear, the whooshing sound of the ocean filling his mind. 

*

Now, with Derek wrapped up around him on the hot sand , he could still hear the echoes of his mother’s laughter in the wind, could smell the leftover milkshake that had been sticking to the inside of his jacket lining that day. The tornado was settled inside him, a breeze pressing gently against his insides, a natural disaster finally calmed. 

“You’re perfect, Stiles,” Derek whispered into his hair. “Nothing really perfect is ever shiny and unmarked.”

And Stiles thought he could believe him.

**Author's Note:**

> This has always been my headcannon for Stiles and I've been thinking about this story since I started watching the show. 
> 
> Stiles is self harms consistently in this story. All Stiles' experiences with self harm are based off of my my own, please do not comment saying it's the "wrong" way or whatever. He also has suicidal idealization and anxiety and depression. 
> 
> Stiles loses his virginity to Heather at her party and is also in a relationship with Malia later on this story. Malia commits suicide towards the end of the fic. 
> 
> Please let me know if any other warnings or tags should be used. I don't want to trigger anyone!
> 
> Thank you for reading, this story is really important to me and helped me put my own feelings into words!!!!


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